2013 and April 27

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Forty-one year-old Harold Naurayan, of Coopers Lane, New Amsterdam, who was on trial in theGuilty: Harold NaurayanBerbice High Court before Justice Brassington Reynolds and a mixed jury for raping a 6-year-old girl has been found guilty.The case was tried in camera, with spectators and the media being debarred, due to the new Sexual Offences Act. When the matter resumed yesterday both the prosecution and defence presented their closing remarks before the jury after which Justice Reynolds summed up the evidence to the 12-member panel which retired to deliberate on the evidence.After over two hours of deliberating, the jury returned with an 11-1 verdict of guilty. According to the indictment read by Prosecutor attorney at law Judith Gildharie-Mursalin, the accused between February 1st, 2013 and April 27, 2013 engaged in sexual penetration with the child.Attorney-at-law Raymond Alli, who represented the accused, then requested a probation report which was granted by Justice Reynolds. The judge fixed Monday April 13 as the date for the presentation of that report.According to the case, as presented by Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions Judith Gildharie-Mursalin, the accused took advantage of the child when she was six years old and told her not to tell her mother or else she would be beaten.During the child’s testimony, she was placed behind a screen.The girl, who is now eight years old, had testified that she had returned from school, and was going to get her slippers to go with her mother who was a vendor on the road, when the man grabbed her and lifted her and placed her on a table in the kitchen. He then removed her underwear and sexually abused her. He threatened her that if she told her mother, he would beat her badly. The girl then went and hid at the back of the house. She subsequently went to her mother, but did not tell her anything.The prosecutor went on to state that on the 27th of April 2013, the child’s younger brother complained  to her mother that the girl wanted him to climb on top of her. The woman then beat her daughter, but soon realized that something was wrong. She subsequently questioned the child, who told her that the accused does it to her.The woman immediately took her daughter to the police station. The child was medically examined. The examination showed that the child had a ruptured hymen and redness to the vaginal area.When the man was found guilty he showed no emotions.Naurayan was on bail for the matter. However after he was found guilty State Prosecutor Assistant Director of Public Prosecution Judith Gildharie-Mursalin asked the judge to remand the accused to jail since he was found guilty.His attorney Raymond Alli requested of the judge that his client continue to have his freedom since he has business to take care of and some matters concerning his children. He said that his client is not a flight risk.  However the prosecutor objected to bail informing the court that, Naurayan is no longer free.Justice Reynolds then ruled that the accused be remanded to jail until April 13. He said that the accused had over two years of freedom whilst the victim and her family had to suffer.Naurayan had earlier given a sworn statement from the dock in which he had denied committing the offence.  He had stated that during that time he was at sea.His lawyer had also told the jury not to believe the child since her testimony could not have been believed.Prosecutor Mursalin had urged the jury to believe the child since she said “out of the mouth of a baby comes the truth”. She had urged the court to believe the child.